Anti Wage-Slavery, Pro-Freedom Quotations Of The Week 807-809

…a Russian man won the inaugural black-caviar speed-eating contest in Moscow, consuming $5,000 worth of caviar in 86 seconds for a prize of $326.
Harper's Weekly Review
April 24, 2012

Humans will always work. But that whole employee-employer thing is optional. It's time to start looking for another model.

What if jobs are the problem, not the solution? What if the survival of the species homo sapiens depends on imagining and creating a different way of organizing work? What if the job system is inseparable from the tyranny of the 1 percent and the incredibly stubborn persistence of racial inequality? 

The system does not work so well for many others. Even those who have had satisfying careers have seen or experienced some of the downsides of the job system: arbitrary and abusive bosses; the fear of losing a job, made all the more intense by the realization that this also usually means losing health insurance; the day-to-day monotony or stress associated with a dysfunctional workplace; the sense that the work being done is unethical or otherwise destructive to the general well-being;  brutal and demoralizing competition and conflict with co-workers; the constant pressure to stay “attractive” to the employer; long hours; low pay; and finally, getting laid-off or fired. Very few of us are exempt.
Is It Possible To Build An Economy Without Jobs?

AlterNet / By Frank Joyce

What would a 'playing society' be like? Well, for one thing it would be a society prepared for truly educated children. The time-sovereign 'shkolars' would require a degree of social security and collective resource similar to that in school - a 'ground of play' which would give them the opportunity to freely create their lives and direct their passions and talents. The welfare implications of this are obvious: we need to devote resources to a space of social autonomy. This is often called a 'social wage' or 'citizen's income', though I prefer 'creative support': the general limitation of working hours is the complementary policy. There needs to be a recognition that the capacious, dynamic creatures that might emerge from a players' education system cannot simply be expected to develop their vocations under the existing regime of jobs, functions and professions. Rather than close down all experiment and self-exploration once the moment of school is over, we need to find a social architecture that can sustain that kind of activity through a life.
Pat Kane
The Play Ethic